A screensaver is a program (see What
is a screensaver). Therefore, it contain an icon. This icon is used
to display it in Windows Explorer or when you create a Shortcut to it
in the Desktop for example. A standard icon is used but it's now possible
to customize it.

Also, your screensaver contains a "Customize"
dialog box. You can customize the illustration image that is included
in this window.

What
is an icon?

An icon is a graphic
image, a small picture or object that represents a file, program, web
page, or command. Icons help you execute commands, open programs or documents
quickly. To execute a command by using an icon, click or double-click
on the icon. It is also useful to recognize quickly an object in a browser
list.

That's almost all you need
to know if you only use icons. But you want to use (or create) icons for
the screensaver customization feature, you need to know more about them.

What are the differences between an image
and an icon?

A computer image is a bitmap (composed of
pixels) or vector (composed of drawing paths) picture, which can be saved
using various formats (BMP, PNG, GIF, JPEG, WMF...). All these formats
have several different properties (bitmaps, vectors, compressed, layered,
animated...) and can be used to store pictures at any sizes and resolution.

Icons are different from
standard images. They are have standard sizes (usually small): 16x16,
32x32, 48x48... One icon is composed of several images. Each of them with
a different size and number of colors (mono, 16 colors, 256 colors, 16.8M...).
And the most important property of an icon is the ability to include transparent
areas. This allows seeing the screen background behind the icon within
its square image.

What is the structure of an icon?

As we've seen in previous paragraph, an
icon is a group of images of various formats (size and colors). Furthermore,
each image can include transparent area. That's why you'll find a transparent
color in the drawing palette for 16 or 256 color images and a variable
opacity parameter for the new Windows XP format (opacity = 0 means transparent).

What kind of icons can I use to customize
my screensaver?

To be compatible with the customization
feature, the icon must be Windows compliant (ICO
format) contain at
least the following image formats:

Axialis Software has released an icon
editor that will permit you to easily create your own icons in a few minutes:
Axialis
IconWorkshop. This professional tool will permit to create
icons with several formats from images in a few clicks. You can download
a shareware version here
and test it for 30 days.

Customize
the screensaver icon

1. The Step 3 dialog box looks like this:

2.
Click on the option Use a custom icon
for the screensaver SCR file to activate it ().
The edit fields below are automatically enabled.

3.
In the edit zone, enter the full path
to your ICO file on your disk or click the [...]
button to browse your disks and locate the file using a standard Windows
dialog box.

4.
Once the pathname has been entered you see a preview of the icon image
in the window on right.

5.
If this is the right icon, click Next.
If the icon has the correct format (see specs above), you can continue
the compilation wizard.

Customize
the screensaver image

The screensaver that
you'll create will contain a Customize dialog box. The application permits
you to customize the illustration image that is included in this window
():

What kind of images can I use to customize
my screensaver?

To be compatible with the customization
feature, the image file must have the JPEG,
BMP or PNG
format. Also, we recommend you to use an image with the following dimension:
Width = 400, Height = 90.